No agreement to free Ukrainian pilot on hunger strike: Russia

Russia has not agreed to free a Ukrainian military pilot, Nadia Savchenko, who was detained in June and is on her 63rd day of a hunger strike, a Kremlin spokesman said on Friday. While the peace deal signed in Minsk yesterday calls for both sides to exchange all hostages and those “unlawfully detained”, President Vladimir Putin’s spokesman Dmitry Peskov told RIA Novosti that Savchenko’s case would have to be decided in court. “It goes without saying the Ukrainian side brought it up, but the president (Putin) repeated his position, that has been voiced many times before, that in this case, she is under investigation and the degree of her guilt or innocence will be established by a court,” Peskov said.

Savchenko, 33, is charged with involvement in the deaths of two Russian reporters killed in east Ukraine in June and is being investigated by the powerful FSB security force. Her lawyers said she went on a hunger strike on December 13 in protest at her detention.